I hardly slept a wink last night. I was awake praying that God would somehow soften the hearts of those in charge at Ålesund Kommune so they would not kick us out once they take ownership of The Sinking Houses. I tried not to be stressed or anxious, but it wasn’t easy. Kory, the cool head that he is, just kept saying things would work out. I wanted to believe him but after he talked with his cousin Axel yesterday (who works for Ålesund Kommune) and found out that the man in charge of this whole thing has no heart, I got a bit concerned. Axel said that a contractor that was building a house next to some property owned by the Kommune accidentally (or not) cut down some trees that were on the Kommune’s property. The Kommune guy made the builder pay $100,000 dollars for each tree he cut down. There was no recourse for the builder, he just had to pay it if he wanted to go forward with his project. He cut down a lot of trees. Everyone that knows that Kommune guy knows he’s difficult to work with. I was glad he was out on vacation this week so Kory didn’t have to meet with him.Kory went in to the Kommune first thing this morning to meet with SOMEONE because the attorney said we needed to move out immediately. The #2 guy didn’t come in today either, so after about an hour of waiting, Kory met with the #3 guy, who happened to be someone Kory had met before, so that helped. Kory explained the situation we are in, and that we would like Kaleb to finish school and we promise to move out by July 1st and we could pay whatever rent they wanted, etc. The guy listened to his pleas but also said that they cannot close the purchase until the houses are empty – as that was the deal they made with the insurance company. The man said he didn’t have authority to override the agreement, and only the #1 guy (Mr. Heart-less) could do that but he is on vacation. Kory told him the attorney said we must move out NOW. So the guy told him he’d meet with some other employees and get back to him later today. Thirty minutes later he called Kory and said he didn’t think we needed to start packing our bags just yet, that all the employees agreed there was a benefit to the Kommune to have someone living at The Sinking Houses because they won't be renting them out until they complete some ground work. He said it will become like a jobsite and it won’t be quiet in the daytime, but he’s pretty sure they can work up a three month lease for us, but it still needs to be approved by the #1 guy first. Kory shouted Hallelujah and thanked the guy profusely, then went over to meet with the attorney. The attorney then said it was okay that we wait until Monday and he said he’s also been telling the Kommune that it’s to their benefit to have us living on the premises just to look after things. So, the pressure is off for now and we will trust God that He’ll be faithful to complete what He has begun, but we won’t know anything for sure until Monday. Uff da. What a stresser.
I went to school half-baked today because of my lack of sleep. I took the three chapter test which I totally tanked on, as did others in the class, so I don’t feel too bad. Maybe it will get the message across that we are going too fast. We even slowed down a bit but it’s still too fast. We are now learning “phrases” which is just a killer. The three words “ute av verden” individually translate as “out of the world” but used together they mean “over and done with.” Why? And how am I supposed to remember that? The four words “sette saken paa spissen” translated individually mean “set the case on the tip” – but when used together mean “emphasis.” It’s so hard to know when I’m so supposed to switch from translating just individual words – to entire phrases. It requires so much memorizing and I’m just so done with that.
Fortunately for me today there was another required meeting, and I volunteered to go as a student representative. This meeting was a monthly gathering just for the students, with one teacher present, to discuss things that students like and dislike about the school. Yesterday’s meeting with the administration was to tell them there is never being enough toilet paper or they need to salt down the icy spots when it’s freezing, stuff like that, but today it was about the learning process. Students from Afghanistan want a field trip to Geiranger (a big tourist town in this area). Good grief.
And then this afternoon Kory and I attended our second parent/teacher conference with Ragnild, Kaleb’s teacher. She said that Kaleb’s improving quite a bit in his reading and speaking Norwegian, but his writing skills need a lot of work. She’s going to have him write things in English and then translate them to Norwegian as she can’t follow his thought process when he writes in Norwegian. She also said he wastes too much time, he finds excuses to NOT do work that is difficult for him (like writing), and that he is the master of excuses. (At least he’s consistent – that’s just how I would describe him at home, too.) I was a bit sad he pulls that stuff at school though. She said she likes how he has become more social and mixes with the kids better but she said he watches when they do something wrong and then he does the same thing to see if he can get away with it. Not good. We had a long talk with him tonight about that one. She said he’s not very organized and she gets frustrated that he’s always losing track of things (don’t I know that!). She said often the brightest kids are like that, so not to be surprised. She showed me some big progress test she had all the students take and he had the highest score in the class which really floored her because it had Norwegian grammar on it too, and he got 100% right on that. He missed 2 points on math because he got the answers right but he didn’t show his work and she counted them wrong. All-in-all she said he’s just fine and he’s come a long way. She really wants him to stay another year to have the opportunity for more socialization. She said Norwegian schools score the worst on standardized tests in all of Europe because the tests just test academics, but Norway focuses more on working together and socializing and “they don’t test for that,” she said. She feels it’s much more important to learn how to get along with others and to work together to solve problems than to know the right answers - because it more accurately reflects the workplace. Okay, then.
